Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The real victim of welfare

I always knew that welfare is bad, but couldn't put up any other counter-argument than "the high tax decrease the money of those who work therefore both their motivation and their ability to invest into more productive work".

Actually I've always felt it's insufficient. After all it talks about tax and not welfare. If the government takes the same tax and spend it on anything that is not immediately productive (like man on the Moon) it should have the very same short term result. But it's not. Military dictatorships where huge tax is collected and spent on the army are usually much more developed and having much higher GDP than socialist dictatorships, spending on welfare.

Gnomegaddon found the real reason (/bow). As you know Blizzard will implement a welfare system, where you can get Naxx25-Ulduar25 gear for no effort, just by grinding 5 mans. Since WoW is a virtual world, Blizzard don't have to tax us to give welfare to the M&S. They can produce gear out of nothing at all. So the change have no effect on us, raiding people.

However it is devastating on beginner and handicapped (poor) people. Gnomegaddon is WoW-handicapped due to his playing schedule. He will be much less geared than the facerolling moron, who spend his infinite free time (unaffected by working or learning) on grinding 5-mans. If Gnomegaddon logs in, sees a "LFM 1 mage to Ulduar 10", he'll have practically 0 chance to get accepted against a completely useless facerolling M&S, due to much worse gear.

If some new player reaches level cap, he will be completely uncompetitive against the ilvl226 M&S. Normally, his ilvl200 blue/crafted epic would be enough to get into starter raids. I'm damn sure that you can clear the siege area with a full 200 group if they know what to do. It's proven that you can clear all T7 content in ilvl 160.

Due to the welfare system he has no other option than join the welfare leech class, stay out of raiding for months to grind enough badges just to apply.

The upper class of the world (the raiders of Ulduar) are not really affected by welfare. No geared M&S will risk our positions as their skills are ridiculous. Our work will always be needed, both RL and WoW.

On the other hand, the poor (WoW casual) people, who want to do any better are forced to do a very steep uphill fight. By chosing to work (wipe in a raid), they lose the welfare money (badge loot). So they must sacrifice the easy reward and work in worse conditions for a very long term reward.

The young person (WoW beginner) has no money (gear), compared to the middle aged welfare leech who already hoarded lot of items from our welfare-money (badge loot). The buying power of the young person (the chance to get into good raid) is small compared to the middle-aged welfare people, so it will be hard for him to progress.

If there would be an even field, the working person would be rewarded for his work. Even if he is poor, by the end of the day, he would be less poor. With welfare he can easily be more poor (compared to the society average) due to the fact that the lazy welfare leech got more money for doing nothing than he got for his work (after tax).

If there would be no welfare epics in WoW, the players would be forced to improve and "work", by becoming useful to the server community. They could only get gear by actually defeating bosses, or producing enough gold to buy BoE.

BTW this is the second victim of the welfare system. Those who produced low-end stuff, like ilvl 200 blues and epics will be out of business, just like the companies that use menial labour in the western world. They simply cannot find workforce (elemental grinders), since the salary they could offer is uncompetitive with the welfare money.

The welfare system is not (directly) harmful to the rich. It's harmful exactly to the person who is used to justify the welfare: "the poor who is not responsible for being poor".

One more thing: the socialist always whine about the income differences, that the society is split into a rich and a poor class with no middle. Currently the WoW-PvE classes:

Ulduar-raiding "rich"

Naxx25 and Ulduar-siege raiding "upper middle"

Naxx25 2 wings raiding "middle"

Naxx10 raiding "poor"

5-man playing "very poor"

After the welfare system implemented, there will be no reward in Naxx or Ulduar. So the classes will be:

53 comments:

Saturas
said...

Well, I am pretty sure that NAXX raids won't die out, because the loots bought with the new emblems won't give enough DPS to kill the T9 content. So, who will just farm heroics mindlessly, will have 3 or 4 pieces of T9emblem gear, and the rest will be just heroic dungeon quailty. So they will have to go to Naxx and Ulduar too. Those people will be the middle class, they will just have to replace fewer heroicdungeon items.

This thing has been blown way out of proportion. Spending all of your game time trying to get better gear, only to have it replaced next content patch or expansion pack... what a waste of time and effort. I laugh at anyone whose only goal is better gear. A completely futile and pointless task.

And trying to get a Naxx 10 together at the moment is damn near impossible, anyone getting up to that level at the moment has only the choice to join a "Friendly social guild" to get in....

This change is a good one. I am currently 13/14 ulduar and working on hard modes with my guild. We have a core group for our 10 mans but in our 25 mans we are short on geared players sometimes resulting in having to pug a few. We have the amount of people but they are under-geared. Our guild doesn't run Naxx or heroics anymore simply for the fact that there is no point running them. When 3.2 hits we will be doing naxx and heroics because we get badges from it. WE will be able to help out our under-geared players not only will they have fun and get geared up we will to. I personally think that this is a great change. You also must remember that there is going to be a new teir of badge. This is a great change and benefits everyone

We have the amount of people but they are under-geared. Our guild doesn't run Naxx or heroics anymore simply for the fact that there is no point running them.

These two sentences contradict each other. Having under-geared people is exactly the reason to run Naxx / heroics. Of course, it feels better to get additional rewards while doing that, but there are side effects and they are pretty bad.

If there would be no welfare epics in WoW, the players would be forced to improve and "work", by becoming useful to the server community.

Because doing 5 mens until you have 555 badges is not "working". Besides, they wouldn't suddenly start doing raids as they either are not capable to or do not want to raid. Instead they would go play some other game. And Blizzard does not want that to happen so they just throw in some extra loot. Et voilà, these people have something to do again.

I don't really care about idiots being able to faceroll their way to 1 or 2 pieces of gear comparable to those who raid Ulduar 25, the amount of work they will have to put in is beyond most of them anyway. What I do take issue with is the increased availibility of runed orbs. This is for purely selfish reasons. At the moment my guild has Ulduar 25 13/14 on farm with some hard modes being attempted, a fairly high-end guild. I cannot buy any upgrades with my emblems of conquest any more and so every week I can buy a runed orb and sell it for 800-1000g. people being able to buy a runed orb for a few heroic runs rather than more or less clearing ulduar 25 is going to drive down the price of these and make me about 800g poorer per week. I've suggested to my guild master that he sells all the runed orbs (not all at the same time so as not to drive the price down too much) that we have in the gbank and are not using for about 8-900g as soon as possible and if they are needed to buy them back when they inevitably drop to around 150g.

"I always knew that welfare is bad, but couldn't put up any other counter-argument than "the high tax decrease the money of those who work therefore both their motivation and their ability to invest into more productive work"

That's the problem with your reasoning, Gevlon. You start with the conclusion you like and then try to find arguments to fit it. The rational approach is to start with the facts and draw conclusions from there, not the other way around. If you don't have a sound argument for "welfare is bad", you shouldn't advocate it.

As for this specific topic, I don't see this change as welfare. It's simply low wages for low skill jobs. You'd have to spend far longer in heroics to gain the same amount of gear as you would running Ulduar. Complaining about this is like complaining that a waitress who works ten times as long as an executive on 10x the wages is able to buy the same stuff.

Farming Heroics? The best boss density vs. time is Naxx10. Our raiding group is already scheduling Naxx10 farm days to round out gear sets for 3.2. I am looking forward to it, because then I can get great DPS gear (secondary talent spec), without have to wait until EVERY caster/boomkin gets their primary set upgraded. Our group runs with /roll for primary set upgrades, then the loot goes to second set if it's not needed. Therefore, I'm in 4pcT.25 for healing, but 0pcT-anything for DPS.

So, I'm upper middle in healing, and poor (by ilvl) in DPS. After 3.2, I will be upper middle/rich in healing, and middle/upper middle in DPS.

If skill is so important, as you say, then it should be easy to recognize a badge-geared out failbot and a badge-geared out raider.

Only the uppper, uppper echelon of raiding guilds stopped running Naxx25 when Ulduar hit. The same will be true for T9, especially because the Colesium (sic) does appear to be a quick run, even including all 4 modes.

I agree with your anti-welfare views in real life, because the generation of wealth must come from some real work. So the poor are the ultimate victims of the system; they have no motive to improve when their basic needs are met (albeit barely).

WoW doesn't follow this model. Wealth is 1's and 0's and Blizzard can rain epixx from heaven. Is this catering to casuals? Yup. Sorry HC raiders, you lost that fight long ago, yet you still pay Blizzard.

First of all, you're exactly right about the BOE crafting (and BOE drops) market. Good BOE items were one way that newer players could gear up outside of raiding. By allowing you to get significantly better items (in many slots) by just running heroic 5-mans, the market for BOE items will shrink to just the slots that you can't fill with emblem gear. That kind of sucks for the crafting professions...

As far as the general "gear welfare" problem, I'm not sure it will have the result Gevlon thinks it will. Of course bad players will be able to have better gear than good players who just hit level 80, but that's true NOW too. I've met plenty of terrible players with gear that SHOULD allow them to do well, only instead of grinding emblems to get it, they just try raid after raid until they find a group willing to carry them. The conquest emblem gear will be somewhat of an upgrade for them, but they ALREADY outgear the newer players, so the problem should still exist.

In fact, the new emblem mechanics highlight one of the ways welfare can be GOOD...by giving an easier mechanism for "poor" or "young" players to get enough gear to run end-game content. Of course they can do that now, but it's much more difficult for them to catch up. Making it easier to get gear makes it easier for everyone, but only the good players will be able to take advantage of the opportunity.

Just like with the real life welfare debate, the main opponents of this change seem largely driven by this idea that THEY didn't need gear welfare, so why should anyone else. And just like in real life, they miss why the situations aren't the same. As more and more content gets released, the "gear ramp" gets longer and longer. This isn't a problem for those of us positioned on the top, we're gearing up when everyone else is gearing up, so unlimited opportunity exists for us to do runs with good players to get good gear. But as we move on, the opportunity for people NOT at our gear level to clear older content is greatly decreased.

Think of this change less like "welfare" and more like "student financial aid". It won't give everyone the SKILLS to run end-game content, but it will give them the opportunity.

Military dictatorships where huge tax is collected and spent on the army are usually much more developed and having much higher GDP than socialist dictatorships, spending on welfare.

Myanmar has a frightfully low GDP, as does North Korea. And when Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Lybia were active military dictatorships, they had amongst the lowest GDPs in Africa, even given their abundance of oil resources.

It turns out that government type has far less effect on national GDP than whether or not your neighbors are rich, for the most part.

I refer you to this article:http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/gdp_a_few_pictures_are_worth_a.php

OK, none of you understand the real reason for the emblem changes. The change is for guilds like mine. We are a small 10 man raiding guild working on Hodir in Ulduar. We raid 6 hours a week. 2 hours on Wednesday and From 7:30 server till we are done on Friday. We have been in Ulduar since it opened and we have been progressing fairly well. What do we lack?

Time.

We can upgrade our characters only via Ulduar. We can only do Ulduar when we have 10 people. We are a small guild with limited time. We can only raid on our two nights and adding more people to the mix would make it worse, not better. Now Blizzard would like us to do all the content, so would we. But running 10 man ulduar we cannot get any real upgrades from the badge rewards. The badges are supposed to be the alternative to the RNG. Can’t get your drop, get with a badge. Problem is Valor gear is not an upgrade or side-grade to Ulduar gear.

The new badge system gives us the ability to get loot equivilant to current Ulduar gear and get around the RNG to properly gear our characters. In addition it allows us to seek upgrades in the time we have out of the raid. It is also a way to keep people playing as you can now get upgrades outside of 10/25 man content. This allows a guild like mine 2 things, the ability to get through the raid in a reasonable time, and something to strive for outside the raid that helps the group.

The other thing this is intended for is to gear Alts. If I have a level 80 character in my guild right now, I will never get them geared for the current raid content. If we want to gear a new toon we have to give up raid progression for a week to do it. This makes it increadibly hard to get an alt geared. This is a time constraint issue. It also hurts if we need a different class due to people missing a riad or something. Say we need one of our DPS to play their tank one night since payer X cannot make it. That person has no ability to really gear that character due to time constraints and the whole I need 10 folk and 3-4 hours to do a raid. The emblems help that person gear their alts to do the current content and again help the group. This is a mid expansion push so that we can all continue to upgrade our toons regardless of our time constraints. It is equal to adding the better BOJ gear in BC. It’s really no different.

We are not bad players. We are not M&S trying to “welfare” as you call it. This is overall a good change that will allow more people to use their time better. I will do my “work” and I will succeed. I will no longer be hampered by only looking at 2 days a week to get upgrades.

As a final note, no I cannot just switch guilds or play more. What we have works well. If this change was not coming in though a lot of my fellow raiders would be looking to leave the game as they too cannot find anything of value to do with their characters outside of raids.

The Ulduar raider spends 3 hours in an instance and gets a piece of gear, maybe two if they're lucky.

The non raider spends days running heroics for a piece of gear, with no chance at a bonus piece.

Granted, the raider gets less drop gear over time, but they still get emblems with which they can buy emblem gear of their own. At the end of the day, the raider still gets more rewards for their time invested.

I don't understand the angst over this change. It is a good change with no downside.

I respectfully disagree with gnomeaggedon. Can't get into a pug because of gear? Then run one yourself for folks like yourself. Guess what will happen over time. You'll meet similarly constrained, but competent folks and you'll form a regular group and will need to pug less.

What this change will do is bridge the gap for fresh 80 level characters, whether an alt or main, so that the route to the Colleseum raids is not so steep.

This has zero benefit to the slackers. Why? By definition they are too lazy to grind out enough heroics to get the 'welfare' upgrades.

What this does for Blizzard is revitalizes instances that are quickly becoming ghost towns. Right now there is very little reason to run 5mans. With the release of the Colleseum raids would mainly be split between there and Ulduar leaving Naxx behind. But with the badge change people will be able to do old content without feeling it's a waste of time. They can help friends gear up and help themselves in the process. The net of this is that now people will have a lot more options where to spend there time and still benefit. Alts will get geared. New 80s will get geared. The secondary of the dual speccs will get geared.

Morons will be morons. They can't hide long behind their gear before they are outed. Slackers will never make it because of the grind. For the rest of the people it is a win-win.

If I have a level 80 character in my guild right now, I will never get them geared for the current raid content.

Gearing two characters *should* be twice as hard as gearing one character. That's the intent. Suppose for the moment the change goes through. What's next? "I have 10 alts and I can't gear them in the time I got, please give me loot?" Doh.

@Willowbear

Right now there is very little reason to run 5mans. With the release of the Colleseum raids would mainly be split between there and Ulduar leaving Naxx behind.

Nope. The change will "revitalize" 5man instances at the cost of killing Naxx and Ulduar. Why raid Naxx or Ulduar when heroics provide the same loot? Yes, there are people who would still do that because they like raiding. The change will punish them (others will get same or better loot in heroics faster and get accepted to guilds raiding the last tier first). This is exactly the problem.

Morons will be morons. They can't hide long behind their gear before they are outed. Slackers will never make it because of the grind. For the rest of the people it is a win-win.

Consider a true casual (skilled or learning fast, limited play time). Morons (might be better to call them "grinders") will make it worse for them because they will flood the doors of raiding guilds with their applications and will have better loot. Slackers will have no effect. I'd say the number or grinders (or morons if you will) is and will be enormously large. This makes it not a win-win but a win-lose. With "win" on the wrong side.

Only problem is right now the number of positions available in Nax10/25 and 5mans is drastically reduced compared to pre 3.1. The people that were taking the time to organize the runs have switched back to their mains to do Ulduar and aren't looking back. So Middle, Poor, and Very Poor currently have a much harder time finding any work to do (without leading themselves). Without positions to work, players willing to work can’t improve. ie for a fresh lvl 80 Wellfare+work > Wellfare w/o work if everyone gets the same amount of welfare. But if there isn't enough work available for every fresh 80?

Simply put the people that ran the successful Nax, OS and to a lesser extent heroics pugs were often good players in raiding guilds just killing time on alts. They stop hiring.

Blizzards new welfare system will cause even “rich players” to start running 5-mans and Naxx again, thus creating more positions for the “Poor” to fill.

In BC Kara was always the most run instance week after week, regardless of what Tier it was. Lets guess in Tier 4, probably 90% of raiders did Kara. Tier 5, probably 85% of raiders did Kara, Tier 6 probably 70% of active raiders did Kara. Lets guess about wotlk. Tier 7 probably 90% of raiders did Naxx weekly. Tier 8, I’d guess 30% of raiders do Naxx weekly. Whoa wait I’m I saying 70% of Tier 7 raiders moved into Ulduar? NO, I’m suggesting that maybe 15% of Tier 7 raids moved into Ulduar and a large portion of the rest of the “raiders” stopped raiding. What? Why? During Tier 7, all raiders were gearing up, for just the sake of gearing up, or to get ready for Ulduar. At this point anyone that was raiding tier 7 since release is fully geared in tier 7 they. They try Ulduar and fail, they are already geared capped for their progression so it isn’t a gear issue (read no reason to run Naxx for gear), as oppose to going back and doing pointless Naxx PuGs, or continuing to fail Ulduar they simply stop raiding. Pretty much Naxx is now just a place for people that “suck at playing” to hang out.

Well after 3.2 Naxx will no longer be pointless and nearly everyone, good and bad players alike will have a reason to go back into Naxx and 5mans to get better gear via badges. Will that let the bad players do Ulduar? Likely not, but it will get group running again, group not 100% full of fail and between alts and mains that will keep players busy for a long while.

This is exactly all the emblem change is going to do. Let people grind from ilvl 200 to ilvl226. Most people will never end up in full 226 gear before wotlk finishes. Some will grind hard and be fully geared in 2weeks. But I think the point is as most people start to work towards getting to ilvl 226 5mans and 3.0 raids will become more common again.

Blizzard isn’t trying to be nice. They knowns that BC had good subscriber retention. They finally figured out that much of that retention was based around badge runs.

@silentjoe I'm sorry to say you are wrong. the constraint is not difficulty but time. If I am able to raid 2 nights a week only, my choices are:

A. continue raidng the new content with my main.

B. Abandon my main to play and gear my alt.

c. Sacrifice family and job to raid more nights each week to gear the alt.

This is not a good choice to make. it is constrained by the need to have 10 people of decent skill to complete a raid instance.

In addition look at the problem of having an alt to fill another role. As in my example of needing a tank when one of our regualr tanks goes on a 2 week vacation. Should i just bring in some dude to tank for us for just the 2 weeks? Thats unfair to that person. I would have to pay them in some way and that is unfair tothe rest of the group that has worked to make it to where we are.

This change allows us to gear almost solo. Geting into and clearign a 5 man is far easier to do tiem wise than getting 10 peopel to run a raid for 4 hours.

Talk to Gev about trying to clear naxx in PUGS. It's hell.

This is a good change to ease the time burden on players who are in progresion based guilds with less thatn 10 hours a week to raid. And with thte stated goal of blizzard being they want as many peopel to see the content as possible, this makes sense.

I also agree with some of the posters that this isn't a move to help the bad raiders, but rather to boost retention or gearing of the "middle class" raiders. There are a large number of guilds that have cleared naxx 25, but don't have the players to clear even part of ulduar 25 (at least not without pugging).

And the gear in ulduar 10 is almost the same level as naxx 25. What makes this worse is the fact that 90% of T7 raiders need nothing from Naxx 25 except for maybe the last boss. So it's hard to get a group going and people just leave or roll an alt because they're gear capped and can't get into the next tier.

You can argue that it's to help the M&S who only need heroics now, but it's going to help the middle class raiders who can only raid T7 much more. As one week of Naxx 10 and 25 will yield more badges in less time.

Not sure if Gevlon knows how the world actually works. There are significant barriers separating the rich from the poor here in America, and i've seen both sides. The rich are rich because they can afford the best schools, which allow the kids to grow up with solid networks and know people, and get good jobs. It's not that a harvard MBA is better than any other MBA, its that the millionares are the graduates from it, and those with that degree inevitably end up in that class. Anyway there are real barriers. If you dropped out of high school and are a waiter, chances are you aren't going to move up very far without solid connections and smarts. If you got a PhD, then the world is open, but you really have to make it, and connections are again critical, they will make or break it.

In contrast in wow, you really can move up from 'poor' class doing heroics, to naxx, to ulduar, with just some hard work. If you don't have a good guild (connections), you'll have to PUG it, but I've done it, and so can anyone else if they have the time. You can gear up within weeks (daily heroic every day, naxx25/10 sar 10/25, vault 10/25), that's a ton of ways to get gear.

This is just like all the moronic complaining about "welfare epics" in BC, groundless elitism (in the silliest sense, since this still nothing but a game, last I checked). Bliz isn't just handing out decent epics to everyone, bliz is forcing you to spend huge periods of time grinding for said epics. But huge, I mean much longer than just doing Naxx25 or Uld.

Its like the Arena kids complaining that people who like battle grounds can get competitive epics in BC.

Being a hardcore raider is NOT the ends to the game. Being a hardcore raider is one, minority, play style. And right now, being a player who finds raiding boring, and can't stand arenas, end-game is boring. And as it stands right now, you either fall into some fictional "hardcore" group, or you quit giving Blizzard $15/month.

I'll probably be coming back for my "Welfare" epics, and the renewed focus on battlegrounds. Gearing this way will take long periods of time.

As someone, who I'm sure you'd put in you M&S category (ala internal attribution error), this is fine by me. I owe nothing to the raider kids, or arena kids, I don't care if they're happy one bit. Nor should I.

Just like your silly obsession with tying some strange ideologically pure Ayn Randian/Libertarian fiction into WoW, there is some mirror with reality here. The normal players, who you hate so much, are the ones who allow you to do your big "1337" crap. They outnumber you, and their actual contribution to the game is larger. If Bliz alienated them, WoW would die.

Your argument in just a post-hoc attempt to make your self feel special, and worse it is nothing but an attempt to fit disparate facts into a groundless conclusion you already made.

You must remember, your as "right" as the guy you disagree with, and can probably cite the same amount of supporting evidence as they can. Amazing isn't it.

The only logical conclusion is that the ideologically pure are wrong. And the only solutions that actually work are those which blends multiple ideologies into some actual, functioning, solution which benefits everyone as much as possible, but doesn't hurt anyone, as much as possible, in balance.

Bliz seems to have done this, after deciding that only the people who really care about their in-game status matters, at the expense of normal players.

@SilentJoe: The reason Naxx and Ulduar won't get killed is because despite the time commitment (which isn't that much in regard to Naxx. A speed run can be done in 3hrs or less.) the rewards are still much better than 5mans and you can get badges as well. Show me the weapon upgrades that you can get in 5mans or from badges that match what you can get in Ulduar/Naxx. Show me that you can do Ulduar or even the new Colleseum in 5man gear and you'll make me a believer. Both Naxx and Ulduar are still stepping stones to build toward the next instance release. Couple that with the fact that there will not be as much new content released with 3.2. There will be raiding time leftover after the new content which will at least be spent in Ulduar.

I'm not sure I understand your point about morons. You start off talking about a 'true casual' and then shift into morons and raiding guilds. Sounds like apples and oranges to me. But I don't know what your definition of a 'true casual' is or a 'raiding guild'. Until you are more specific about those your point is lost. Making my own assumptions about their meaning:

'true casual' = someone who plays 6hrs or less a week

raiding guild = a guild that raids at least 3 nights a week or more with required attendance

Given my assumptions why would a true casual ever want to join a raiding guild?

Barring my assumptions, I would expect a raiding guild to have a better recruitment process than -

"Can i join ur raiding guild for my epix?""Sure! Here's an invite!"

If they don't then they deserve the morons.The reason both 5mans and Naxx will be revitalized and Ulduar won't be abandoned is based on that 'socio-economic' class heirarachy G posted. Each level will b

How would that help the # of raids I can do in a week? I have time for 2 raids a week. I still need to gear my main as well.

The problem is that raid content takes more people and more time.

And no where did I say leveling an alt should be easy. I am saying that current conditions make it almost impossibel to gear an alt within reasonable time constraints. Blizz is easing that time constraint but lengthining the amount of overall time it takes to aquire that gear. I can spend 7 hours in 5 mans ove ra week to get 1 item. Or, I can spend 4 hours, all at once, to get 2-3 items dependng on the RNG and group. It seems fair to me. the investment is still there, but it is spread out.

Military dictatorships where huge tax is collected and spent on the army are usually much more developed and having much higher GDP than socialist dictatorships, spending on welfare.

Thanks, I haven't had a good laugh in a long time.

As for the welfare issue, think of it as an investment. When people start starving to death in the streets, how long before the revolutionaries start burning down goblin mansions? The list of countries that discovered this the hard way is long.

Welfare is bad because It harms the people that are made eligible for it. The primary result of welfare or entitlements in general is it takes away the need to work for what is now given for free. So the time you would have spent making 5 dollars you can sit on your ass. You don't have to live in a nice house or drive a nice car or buy the best things or do anything that stimulates the economy or spurs progress if you are getting what you need to survive with out any work you can simply just survive. It makes the welfare class unproductive because they don't have to be productive. A great example of this is Predatory animals in captivity. When Animals born in captivity were first re-introduced to the wild they invariably all died because they didn't know how to hunt and kill their own food and they didn't know how to defend themselves against competitors for food. So they died. drawing the parallel if you receive welfare and don't know how to make the equivalent money it creates a dependence on the state for provisions.

Welfare is bad because it makes the people on welfare essentially worthless, and it destroys the value of the people who have to pay taxes to fund the welfare system. This also juxtaposes with your post regarding public health care.

First of all it's not even close to a welfare system because everyone can participate and no one pays more for the benefit of another player. Point out where the hardcore raider is disadvantaged? Point out where the casual raider is disadvantaged? Will you raid less? how? You clearly thing that is a zero sum situation that there are only a certain amount of raids going on at any one given time. This thinking is flawed.

The emblem change isn't welfare, because you have to run just like everyone else for your emblems how is that producing something out of nothing? because they don't run the harder content which by the time the patch drops won't be the hardest content in the game? and That's bad? how? What's the problem with this What this does is get more people to the end of the game faster. it makes the pool by which to choose successful pugs great and gives the casual raider a greater chance at being successful and makes the game more fun. It makes business sense for Blizzard to do this.

Your comparisons of Upper class Middle Class and Lower Classe To elite raiders, Casuals and M&S is also ridiculous.

In a Welfare State the rich are Gouged by the state so the state can subjugate people by being their sole means of survival. there is no middle class, everyone is poor.

Here NOTHING happens to the Elite raider except he gets to Geargasm all over a shiny new instancesa nd will get another one when IC drops. But they aren't keeping anyone down.

Casuals you deem to be poor have more choices because they can get better through running content they already know and can finish so they can do the harder content. In Real life if you are on welfare and you work to get your self off welfare shit gets hard again and you have to spend more time to take home the same amount of money working than you would if you were on welfare. In wow there is a cumulative benefit to the causal player AND to his guild because they can run other content together. It also benefits elite guilds because when they have to pug the have more choice in who they pug.

This fatalistic reaction is comical and is based on bitterness and feelings. People are just mad because someone who comes after them will have an easier time than they did and they are pissed about that.

It's not Welfare if you give the disadvantaged a way to compete, it's not even affirmative action. Because no one is disadvantaged. go to the South Bronx or east new york 4th ward New Orleans, East Cleveland, East St Louis, downtown Newark New Jersey, you'll see what welfare looks like and you know that this doesn't even come close.

WoW has such a huge number of users that no matter what they do there is a problem. The problem you cite is valid and will happen to someone. Of course this problem could be solved by nearly anyone by joining a casual guild, like mine, that is running 10-man Ulduar for a couple hours twice a week.

When people form PUGs and do gear checks they will only drop your undergeared character for a better geared one if it is causing problems (wipes). When you ask for an invite they will do a gear check to make sure your gear is at the proper level, and the Emblem change will basically make sure your gear is at level to get into PUGs.

Anotehr benefit is that the elmblem change increases the ways for players to increase their skill.

They can now be able to enter a greater majority of content, playing with more players and wider varied players. They can learn more encounters, mechanics, and playstyles.

As raiding content scales with difficulty rather quickly, by being abel to experience harder content people will learn.

The reason Naxx and Ulduar won't get killed is because despite the time commitment (which isn't that much in regard to Naxx. A speed run can be done in 3hrs or less.) the rewards are still much better than 5mans and you can get badges as well.

I am *absolutely* sure you will get much more bang for the buck in easier heroics (think UK) than in Naxx, yet alone Ulduar. Heroics need 5 people, Naxx / Ulduar need 10. Heroics can be played with one hand, Naxx / Ulduar require two (relatively speaking). There are many heroics, there is only one Naxx and only one Ulduar. These and other factors far outweigh the additional loot Naxx and Ulduar have to offer. We are not talking about speed runs here either.

We will see, I guess, but I have absolutely no doubt in the above.

I'm not sure I understand your point about morons. You start off talking about a 'true casual' and then shift into morons and raiding guilds.

I only used the word "morons" because you used it to refer to a group of players. Perhaps I misunderstood your definition of that group. I offer another term, "grinders", for those people who have a lot of time but choose not to learn to play well enough to do current raids, Naxx included (not discussing reasons). My definition of a true casual almost coincides with yours, with the exception that a casual can still raid. 6 or 8 hours a week is frequently all that is needed, many raiding guilds are OK with people raiding 2 and sometimes even 1 night a week.

@Althalas:

How would that help the # of raids I can do in a week? I have time for 2 raids a week. I still need to gear my main as well.

Like I said: spend these 2 raids earning emblems on the main, then mail them to an alt. If you need emblems for the main, you don't have the time to gear an alt and are trying to do the impossible.

I can spend 7 hours in 5 mans ove ra week to get 1 item. Or, I can spend 4 hours, all at once, to get 2-3 items dependng on the RNG and group. It seems fair to me.

This is odd. You are arguing that you don't have the time to gear an alt and you want to reduce that time. Yet you are OK with spending more time in heroics than you would in raids (which would be possible if the emblem change I propose goes live). If you said, "I would settle for emblems being BoA, but Blizzard doesn't plan to do this, so I am happy they make emblems drop in heroics", I would understand. If your position is different, I don't.

@dozenz:

What I find funny is the concept that people think this positive change can adversely affect anybody at all.

Yes it can. Read the blog. People who are not raiding yet and want to raid lose out unless they have a lot of free time.

(Hrrm, I truly think Gevlon should stop doing analogies between WoW and real life. They just muddy waters. This blog is a perfect example of a train of logic I can completely agree with being drowned in... well, I am keeping my mouth shut.)

Flawed analogy, the increased ease of obtaining raiding gear is not analogous to the welfare system in the real world. It's purpose and design is different. In WoW the point is that someone new to the game, and interested in getting into raiding would have no chance without this change. Real raiding groups will have moved on beyond the naxx and Ulduar runs that they would need to gear up to become ready for the Coliseum, leaving most players who are not already raiding locked out of the end game by trying to play catch up with substandard pugs or being carried by superior-geared players. Neither of which is ideal

"In a Welfare State the rich are Gouged by the state so the state can subjugate people by being their sole means of survival. there is no middle class, everyone is poor. "

Simply untrue. Most Western European countries have both an extensive welfare system and a thriving middle class. Why? Because most people want more than just to survive and they work hard to achieve it.

Yes it can. Read the blog. People who are not raiding yet and want to raid lose out unless they have a lot of free time.

Hrrm, I truly think Gevlon should stop doing analogies between WoW and real life. They just muddy waters.

Just because Gevlon can come up with a real life example which can be slightly compared to this emblem change does not make it a one-to-one comparison or anyway remotely having similar consequences.

And again, this change does not adversely affect anybody.

This change will allow those not raiding but who want to close the gap. It's very simple math. Watch:

Current Emblem SystemNon-raiders are 2 tiers behind content that can be purchased. With 3.2 they are now 3 tiers.

New Emblem SystemNon-raiders are 1 tier behind content that can be purchased.

1 tier < 3 tiers

So how is this a negative impact again?

"But raiders will put more time in and get more tokens and gear faster so I can't compete"

Newsflash Simplejoe....raiders will be gearing up faster by actually raiding. I know a concept like this which has remained unchanged since Vanilla is difficult to grasp.

There are non-raiders who will spend more time running heroics, but if they are non-raiders than they don't compete.

In this "non-raiders who want to raid" category there will be some who have more time to run heroics than others so will gear up slightly faster...but since that is how it currently exists it does not adversely affect them.

[i]Simply untrue. Most Western European countries have both an extensive welfare system and a thriving middle class. Why? Because most people want more than just to survive and they work hard to achieve it.[/i]

I disagree with you, and I think however our disagreement is a matter of perspective. Which forces me to posit the question what is this concept of class that allows us to stratify wage earners into it's upper middle and lower classes.

Class is a divisive measure used to turn a certain group of people against everyone else.

The term middle class was born out of the rise of a new class of people apart from the Nobility or land owners, and the Peasantry called the Bourgeoisie. The Bourgeoisie arose out of Mercantile Activity and Trade. Today Middle class basically means you make under 250k a year, you have some investments, you own your own home, you have a college education. Not very finite measures of classness.

I don't recall ever saying anything about Western Europe, But since you posit that Western Europe is comprised of welfare state countries lets take a look at some of the countries with the most entitlement programs.

France, England, Germny and Italy have had Lack luster markets for years, and Aging population, abysmal birthrates, declining employment. for the last 2 decades. Their middle class may look like it's growing simply because that number is taken as a percentage of the citizenry. All of these countries have growing immigrant populations which aren't counted as citizens, and often are tasked with the manufacturing jobs that require a young population these countries simpley aren't producing natively. All of these countries have immigrant Non citizen populations approaching 20% that's Staggering. There lower class is growning faster than the middle and upper classes, which is why you can't go into sections of Paris at night, or Liverpool Or Manchester. Western Europe's white population is dying, and is in large part a result of entitlements.

Germany Scotland Ireland and France are become less entitlement based in my opinion and they aren't welfare states in the way the theoretical welfare state Gevlon was using to compare to the Patch changes.

I'm sure you can agree that when you take from the rich and give to the poor you're going to start pushing the rich out of your country or at least their money and their businesses, Which has definitely happened to European businesses. This means that your talent leaves the country too this is your middle class your young and educated and they often do leave these countries in order to keep more of their money. This contributes to lower birthrates because these are the people who are most likely to have children. I don't quite understand why but socialism is completely anathema to Religion, which has been steadily declining in the wake of declining governance support, and even government restriction. This is another reason birthrates are low.

You can also look at why people used to have lots of kids and that's because Europe and the US, was primarily agriculture and you needed children to tend fields that's they school hours are the way they are that's why kids get summer off. (interesting trivia) Moving to a nearly complete manufacturing/service based economy has given rise to Large obscene entitlements to workers and unions and in order to pay for these large pensions the citizenry is taxed. If you don't make more money or make just enough money to keep the lights on in your flat, lack purchasing power for a home, there's no way you're going to get married. Now assuming that you manage to make it as a middle class person in Europe and can afford to get married and have a child the probability is you're only going to have One child maybe two. if you have 60% of your population getting married which is on the high side for Europe you need 4 kids per couple to replace the population accounting for mortality before the age of 65%. Now if you're a politician and you need your populace to accept taking 50% of what they earn for entitlements you better find a way to keep them from having children because they compete against your interests. You encourage birth control abortion and various other things to reduce competition to the power of the state. Why do you think china has a one child per family policy? Because of population? When 12% of the land mass in populated? I'm order to Promote entitlements you have to control the desires of your populace you have to engage in social engineering. You will not find high birthrates in countries with low freedoms.

That's the question. Picking up a few pieces of loot with conquest badges is hardly going to kill raiding. If they allow you to fully gear using 5 man conquest badges, you could be right and only Triumph badge raiding will be pursued.

As you can see from here, 9 od the world's top 10 birthrates are from sub-saharan africa. The non-african one is Afghanistan. Featuring well above any liberal western nation are Saudi Arabia, Syria, & Libya. North Korea is above Ireland , the USA, New Zealand, France, Australia, the UK, etc.

Seriously - five minutes effort with Google would have revealed that your claim that "You will not find high birthrates in countries with low freedoms" was false.

To quote a more recent post from Gevlon: "There is always data somewhere. Find it. Use it. Opinions are unreliable."

All those countries Are Religious Muslim countries, where there is no birth control, abortion and hardly any Womens rights. Comparing third world agricultural countries with incomparable cultures to western industrial societies is also a little bit of a stretch. I made the assumption we were talking about western countries since you brought up Western Europe I noted the fact you used the Qualifier "Western". I worded my last sentence in correctly, and should have added the word economic before freedom, and included western countries. For that I apologize, But again one of the things I mentioned was religion as a factor of birthrates which the data you provide supports. Also in my previous post I alluded too the in-comparability of Agricultural economies and Industrialized economies, vis-a-vis birth rates. Not to mention the countries that top the list also have High infant mortality rates. Which also makes the comparison a silly one.

"All those countries Are Religious Muslim countries"No, they're not. Simply in the top 10, Ethiopia, Uganda, Angola and Congo are not predominantly Muslim. Again, this is something you could easily have checked: it's on the same website I linked you to earlier.

As for the "why so serious?" question, I simply don't believe that making stuff up is a sound basis for rational debate. If you take the trouble to check your facts, it will improve the quality of your arguments and you'll be more convincing in the long run. It's also a good opportunity to check whether your preconceptions are actually true.

I missed the "and" in between "Religious" and "Muslim" Muslim added for emphasis for the next line regarding reproductive freedom, sorry for the confusion. Nit picking my posts doesn't dilute my point that Welfare (low economic freedom) States have shrinking native (white) populations as a percentage of total populations it's even true in the US. You're right I should have been more clear. Appreciate your efforts in ehancing my argument.

It's not nitpicking. You've made three very grand claims in this thread alone that could be proved false with five minutes research. As for diluting your point about welfare causing dilution of "white" populations, well you still haven't provided any evidence for that beyond repeating the assertion.

Without that evidence, the temptation is to believe that this is just something you made up, along with the other three claims.

P.S.

The "white" population is not the "native" population of the USA. Now that's nitpicking.

One of the reasons for blizzard not to implement crafting boe items that are high ilvl is to reduce the focus on gold in-game. Many people don't have/dont want to work that hard/long to get gold so they buy it illegaly. This boosts the success for varius types of goldfarmers in wow.

I loved this line from your post: "... No geared M&S will risk our positions as their skills are ridiculous. Our work will always be needed, both RL and WoW."

Your position in your guild's raid is at risk as soon as the next slightly above average player offers to pay 6000g a week for a raid spot.

You seem to forget you are a john paying a prostitute for a lay, not some uber-skilled pick-up artist.

You got your ilev226 gear not by exceptional skill and dedication to raiding, but by buying it with gold you made by being the Walmart of the auction house. If Blizzard ever puts a listing fee on glyphs or a couple other players start doing mass autoposting and canceling of glyph auctions 6 times a day, your raiding days with a top progression guild are numbered.

You have some very interesting ideas and posts. They make me think, and as I enjoy use of my brain cells, I enjoy reading your posts, regardless whether I agree fully or not.

I have mixed feelings on these so-called "welfare" epics.

On the one hand, because I enjoy having alts, and enjoy experiencing the game from different roles, making it simpler for me to get gear (and see more content on my alts) is good for me.

On the other hand some of the really awful players I have had the misfortune to encounter will probably end up in raids causing headaches and frustration simply due to "gear checks" not being an adequate indicator of ability to stay out of bad stuff.

I like to think I am not one of the M&S since I manage to heal Ulduar groups on my main, and despite feeling stressed about my hunter's DPS, I got it up to 2.5K by reading about the class, and being willing to sacrifice the spec I enjoyed (Beast master) for a spec that would benefit a raid situation more (survival).